Wifi, Signal Strength, and Meaningful Connections (8-3-22)

Last week was about rethinking impossible.  This week the words that inspired me come from a computer alert about Wi-fi and stronger connections.  I was working on my computer on my back patio, trying to get caught up on everything, when the below message popped up and struck a chord with me. 

I looked at it for a moment and my first instinct was to say, “Thanks Captain Obvious!”  My second instinct was to say, “I’m not that far away from the router.”  Then, I had a mini epiphany, which just goes to show that sometimes inspiration comes from strange places.  As I looked at the message, I started substituting words.

  • “The strength of your connection between you and the people you care about could be improved by moving closer to them.”
  • “The strength of your connection between you and yourself could be improved by moving closer to who you are.”

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything.  If I’m being entirely honest, work (and life for that matter) has been kicking by butt for the past few months.  The expectations are high, and the pressure to meet them (whether external or internal) is even higher.  It’s a flurry of early mornings, long nights, fire drills, and last-minute pivots.  It’s been sprinting and sprinting and sprinting with little rest.  Have you felt like this lately?

With all of this, I’ve felt myself getting lost in the swirl.  It is kind of like being on a boat where each wave took me further and further from shore.  Suddenly, you look up and realize how far you have drifted away, and that you need to get back.  That pop up from IT was the nudge to get back to shore.  My mini epiphany made me pause and realize that I had moved AWAY from the people/things that make me whole, and I needed to focus my energy on moving CLOSER to the people/things I care about (myself included).  After all, life is all about having meaningful connections with people and things you love.  It was just the nudge I needed to step back and refocus after a chaotic few months.  

The challenge: Who or what do you need to move closer to?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

“Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week.” (7-27-22)

Happy Wednesday,

Last week was about being intentional about the weight we carry.  This week we will look at song lyrics and the idea of impossible.

Back in 2000, Kanye West was at the height of his popularity.  During this time, he released a song called “Diamonds are Forever.”  Eventually, he released a remix of that song featuring Jay-Z.  Not only does the song have an awesome beat and some great flows from Kanye and Jay-Z, but it also has lyrics that have been burned into my mind.  On the remix Jay-Z raps,

“This ain’t no tall order, this is nothing to me.

Difficult take a day, impossible takes a week.”

You might be wondering what this has to do with anything.  Think about work for a minute.  How often are you told something is impossible?  How often are we told it can’t be done?  How often do you end up believing that something is impossible?  These lines from Jay-Z are a counter to this thinking.  I love the premise that those short two lines create.  In those two short lines Jay communicates a few things.

  1. There is no such thing as impossible.
  2. It’s not a question of IF, it’s a matter of WHEN he will accomplish a great task.
  3. He has the confidence to lean into the situation.  He believes in himself.

Whenever I face a task that has been described as impossible, I often think of this song and those lines.  I remind myself it’s a matter of time, NOT a matter of possibility.  I then take a deep breath and lean in with confidence to make something amazing happen.  Imagine what would happen if we all embraced this mentality.

The challenge: How will you respond when things are “impossible”?

I stand in solidarity against injustice and in support of humanity.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

It’s only heavy if you lift it (7-20-22)

This week we are going to kick off a series about words and phrases that have struck a chord with me.  We’ll start with a story I recently heard from a Tim Ferriss podcast with Jack Kornfield.  The story is about heaviness and lifting things.

Jack Kornfield trained as a Buddhist monk in Thailand, India, and Burma before coming back to the US to co-found the Insight Meditation Society.  During the podcast, Jack shared a story from his monk days about being on a walk with his fellow monks by a field.  As they were on their walk, one of the elder monks saw a large rock in the middle of the field and noticed the farmers all working around it.  The elder monk asked his fellow monks, “Do you think that rock is heavy?”  They responded, “Yes.  It’s huge.  It’s extremely heavy.”  The elder monk replied, “Only if you lift it.”  The monk was making the point that just because the rock was there, did NOT mean you had to engage with it.  Just because the rock was there, did NOT mean you had to move it.  It’s only heavy if you CHOOSE to take on that burden.  The farmers were working around the rock, instead of trying to lift and move it.

What does this have to do with work?  Like farming, there are thing we will need to do in order to prosper in our jobs.  However, just because we have things we must do, we do NOT have to pick up all the extra weight just because it’s lying around work.  The rock is only heavy IF you try to lift it.  I do NOT have to pick up the additional emotional baggage.  I do NOT have to pick up weight of additional stress.  I do NOT need to carry the weight of unrealistic expectations.  I can choose to leave all this extra weight where it is.  In full transparency, I’m not good at this.  This is not easy for me.  As I look at where I am now, I’m carrying weight for work, and I know I’m allowing myself to carry a bunch of additional weight that I don’t need to hold.  It’s exhausting.  I’ll have to find a way to let go of all of that.

The challenge: Will you be intentional about the weight you carry? 

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

15 Years- Encouraging Strengths in Others (7-13-22)

This will be the final entry in the series about memorable moments throughout my 15-year career.  This week is about a moment that led to other moments for me.  More specifically, it’s about encouraging strengths we see in others.

Back in my training days, I worked with a gentleman named Bill Fanelli.  He was a different cat, always looking for new ways to help people connect and lead from their humanity.  I had mentioned to Bill in a 1 on 1 that I was a writer and that I performed poetry.  One day he asked me if I’d ever be willing to do some poetry for an experience he created.  He was convinced that this approach would engage the audience and open them up to new ways of thinking.  I told him yes, because I never thought he’d actually follow through.  Then, one day he comes up to me and says, “So I have this day long training for leaders of varying levels across the company.  How would you feel about doing some poetry about leadership and building culture?”  I nervously agreed, but only because I had promised I would.  I wrote a poem that became, “Let’s Build” and I performed it for the room of leaders. Not going to lie, performing poetry in my corporate job was weird, because I never thought that side of me belonged at work.  I was wrong.  Imagine my surprise when I saw how it moved them.  Since then, I’ve been blessed with other opportunities to speak and perform for folks, which still blows my mind and fills my bucket. Beyond the poetry, Bill was one of the initial supporters of my blog and was one of the ones who encouraged me to keep writing.  You probably wouldn’t be reading this without him.

What does this have to do with anything?  It would be easy to think this story is about me performing poetry, but it’s not.  It’s a story about Bill Fanelli. It’s a story about a guy who didn’t just see poetry and blogging, but saw that I had a knack for communicating in a way that could reach people.  It’s a story about a guy who saw something in me that I didn’t particularly think to value at the time.  It’s a story about a person who saw this strength and coaxed it out of me, and then watched as it flourished and opened other doors for me.  Those doors have included speaking at other events, growing the blog, and leveraging my storytelling in marketing and market research roles.  As leaders, it is our responsibility to see the strengths inside of others.  It is our responsibility to help them see how powerful and impactful they can be. 

The challenge: Are you appreciating, bringing out, and leveraging the strengths in others?

Bonus 1: Throughout this series I explored some of memorable moments.  You might have noticed the moments weren’t ever really about me.  They were about a colleague or supervisor somehow showing that they cared for me or valued me.  Never underestimate the power you have to make a positive impact on someone.

Bonus 2: I’ve been blessed to speak/perform at a few events.  Here are two of my favorites:

  • Eli Lilly and Company: Andrew Embry Shares #WeAreLilly Poem – YouTube– The “We Are Lilly” poem.  Not going to lie, being asked by the CEO to write/perform poetry was sweet.
  • Waymakers (poem starts at 3:55 left in the video)- A poem I performed at a WILL event.  I had the opportunity to support WILL, show some love and respect for my mom, and I threw down so hard in the poem that halfway through I received mini-standing ovation and had to slow down for a second before I finished.  Best response ever!  I can still feel that energy.

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

15 Years- NOT Jumping in to Save the Day (6-29-22)

Last week was about letters of intent and the power of small gestures.  This week is about a moment when a leader was strong enough to NOT jump in to save the day.

Let’s go back a few years.  I was in our marketing academy working on the the market research team for a launch brand. I had a meeting with the marketing team about the targeting project I was leading.  Have you ever had a presentation/led a meeting where things went great and you left feeling like a rockstar?  This was NOT one of those meetings.  By the end, I was limping over the finish line with bruised legs and a black eye.  It was ugly.  There were questions I wasn’t prepared for, tangents that got us lost in rabbit holes, and I just wasn’t all that effective.  Has that ever happened to you?

Anyway, I talked to my boss after the meeting and we were debriefing how it went.  She kind of chuckled and said something like, “Yeah, I saw it getting a little rocky for you, and you were getting beat up a bit.  I knew it wasn’t anything you couldn’t handle, so I didn’t jump in to save you.  It’s good to learn from those things sometimes.”  I busted out laughing and was like, “Thanks boss!” and then we finished discussing how to improve.  She was right.  I learned a lot from that not so successful interaction with folks, and I was able to apply those learnings in the future in multiple situations.

You might already see where this is going.  Whether it’s being a parent and seeing your kids in a smidge of trouble or being a supervisor and seeing your employee struggle a bit, all too often we dive in WAY TOO EARLY to save the day.  Have you done this as a parent or leader?  When we do this, we “save the day”, but we also rob the person of tremendous growth.  My boss not jumping in was the best help I could ask for.  The stakes were low, the situation uncomfortable, AND it was a great environment to learn in.  Since she didn’t jump in, I had to learn to save myself.  During the course of that botched meeting, I learned I could take a punch to the face and not die, take punches and still have the energy to throw some counter jabs, and how to dodge punches in the future 😉  These lessons helped me in that role and in future roles.  That was one moment where I discovered I had more strength, skills, and tenacity than I previously had known, but I would have never learned that if she had saved me.

The challenge: Are you a strong enough leader to let your people take their lumps and learn from them?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

15 Years- The Power of Small Gestures (6-22-22)

Last week was about caring enough to give tough feedback.  This week is about the power of small gestures.

Let me take you back a few years.  I had graduated from our marketing rotational program and was looking for my first official role in the marketing world.  I had my heart and hopes set on market research, because I love sifting through chaos, connecting dots, turning insights into stories, and allowing my curiosity to run free.  I was lucky to land a role with a market research team.

After my boss officially hired me, we sat down together for the first time and he said something like, “I’m a big Kentucky basketball fan.  I think we need to do this right.”  He grabbed a piece of flipchart paper and wrote up a letter of intent and had me sign it was like I was a top college prospect.  We had someone snap a photo, and then he shared it with everyone as a way to say I had joined the team.  It was a little thing, but it makes me smile whenever I think of it.

What does this have to do with anything?  Can you think of a time when someone did something small to welcome you?  How did it make you feel?  This is a great example of how a small gesture can have a big impact on making someone feel welcome.  My boss didn’t have to do that.  I would have been happy just knowing I was part of the team.  However, by putting in a little extra effort he turned a routine moment into something special.  On top of that, he brought me in and made me part of his love for basketball.  It was that little extra energy, which set the tone for a great adventure with the market research team.  

The challenge: What small things can you do to help people feel more welcome and valued?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

15 Years- Care and Tough Feedback

Last week we started the series about memorable moments over my 15-year career.  This week is a story about a leader showing care by giving me tough feedback.   

It was time for my mid-year check in for my first internal role.  I was doing okay, but I wasn’t setting the world on fire.  I met my supervisor and in a kind, caring, and straight forward way, he said, “You will not meet expectations if you continue to do what you’re doing.  The organization needs you to own this work and drive it forward to deliver X and right now you are delivering Y.  I think you’re currently not delivering X, because you aren’t good at stakeholder management or creating project plans with clear objectives.  How can I help you deliver X?”  I’m not going to lie.  That conversation didn’t make me happy.  I felt like I was coming up short…because I was.  While the feedback hurt a bit, I was incredibly thankful for his candor.  By the time the conversation had ended, I had clarity on what I needed to deliver, and my boss helped me come up with a plan to improve.  By the end of the year, I was delivering X and then some.  I had crushed it!  By the way, I’d work for that boss again in a heartbeat, because of this story and more.  Everyone needs a someone like him in their life.

What does this have to do with anything?  Have you ever experienced a situation where you wish people would have just given you honest feedback and they hadn’t?  How did that make you feel?  Have you ever been the person to NOT give that honest feedback?  Why didn’t you give the feedback?  I’ve been in both situations.  I’ve experienced that we are often “Lilly nice” and we avoid these tough conversations.  Avoiding these conversations isn’t “nice”. It’s harmful.  While these conversations are hard, they are critical to be successful.  If you truly care about people, you’ll share truth with them.  If my boss had been “nice” and never given me the feedback, I would have kept on my path, got to the end of the year, and then been blindsided by not delivering to the level I was supposed to.  However, he cared enough about me to be real.  His feedback was what I needed to get better.  His feedback led me to develop skills that helped in that role and beyond, so I could grow AND deliver for the business.

The challenge:  Are you being “nice” or are you delivering the truth that needs to be told?

Bonus: If you are looking for help in this area I’d suggest you check out Radical Candor by Kim Scott or watch her talk on the subject.  

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

15 Years and Muscle Up Buttercup (6-8-22)

This month marks 15 years for me at Eli Lilly.  Throughout my career I’ve spent time in sales, training, ghost writing for the CMO, market research, and marketing.  It’s been a wild ride, and with that in mind I’d like to kick off a series about the moments that have stuck with me throughout my career.  Some will be positive and some won’t be so rosy.  This week is about the power of showing your belief in someone.

A few years ago I was on the market research team.  I was leading the team in some pivotal messaging research, and EVERYTHING was going wrong.  We were having problems with recruiting.  We were having problems with technology.  The interviews were clunky.  Everything was falling apart.  I felt like a failure and I was so frustrated.

While all this was going on my key business partner at the time wrote me a little note.  It said something like, “If I had to be in a burning clown car of market research it would be with you.  Muscle up, buttercup!”  First, this made me chuckle.  Second, it was great leadership.  By writing this note to me she was saying, “I get that everything is falling apart, but I believe in you.  If you won’t believe in yourself right now on your own, at least believe in yourself because I see what you can do.  I trust you to lead us out of this.”  That few words meant the world to me.  Eventually, we were able to make everything come together, and we created an awesome message that helped us hit our goals and help out a lot of patients.

What does this have to do with anything?  As a leader, sometimes it is our job to encourage people when they are at their low point.  This isn’t about lying to them.  It’s not about telling them that everything is okay.  It’s about seeing their strength, demonstrating you believe in them, and then showing them that you have faith they will deliver.  I don’t know about you, but often when I’m at a low point, the mere act of someone else showing their faith in me is enough to help me keep going.

The challenge: How are you demonstrating your faith in others?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Running Toilets and Facing Problems (6-1-22)

Last week was about planting flowers and stopping to appreciate beauty.  This is the final entry in our home improvement series and focuses on running toilets and facing problems.

Recently, I had a toilet that wouldn’t stop running.  I knew it was an issue, I just didn’t feel like messing with it.  Instead, I avoided the problem by shutting the water off to the toilet.  While this allowed me to avoid the problem, it also inconvenienced everyone in the house.  Has anyone else out there just avoided a house repair problem because you didn’t want to mess with it?  Confession.  The water was shut off to that toilet for days.  During that time span I had time to address the problem, I just chose not to.  Eventually, I took the time on a Sunday to figure out what was going on.  I watched a 5-minute YouTube video, realized the issue was with the float, grabbed a screwdriver, and fixed the problem.  All in all, it probably took a total of 10 minutes, when I had been avoiding addressing the issue for days.   

What does this have to do with anything?  In the above example, I kept avoiding a problem, because I didn’t feel I had the energy to deal with it.  At the same time, the longer I avoided the problem, the bigger of a deal it became.  By the time I went to fix it, I assumed it was going to be some huge, horrible endeavor, and it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be.  At the end of the day, the energy I put into avoiding the problem was SUBSTANTIALLY more than the energy it took to address the problem. 

Have you ever done that?  Have you ever spent more energy avoiding a situation than facing into it?  Maybe it was a project for work that looked particularly tricky.  Maybe you avoided a tough conversation.  Maybe you had a task that you knew would be difficult, and it was so much easier to just answer emails and other things.  I’ve experienced all those things.  For me, this home improvement story was a great reminder that sometimes you just need to dive into the thing you do not want to do.  It was also a great reminder that often the thing you think is going to be horrible, is not nearly as bad as you made it out to be.

The challenge: Will you face the problem, or will you continue to avoid it?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry

Accomplishment, Flowers, and Appreciating Beauty (5-25-22)

Last week was about garage door motors and designing customer solutions.  This week is about accomplishment, flowers, and appreciating beauty.

We have lived in our house for about 10 years.  During that time, my wife has spent a significant amount of time and energy planting trees, bushes, and flowers.  None of these things necessarily accomplish anything.  The flowers don’t provide food.  The flowers don’t open garage doors.  The flowers are not essential to our house.  At the same time, they are valuable.  They give us a chance to experience beauty and peace, and that’s worth something. (Pic is from my son planting the flowers to spell “Yay”. Totally not necessary. Totally bring me joy.)

What does this have to do with anything?  In a world that is so focused on achievement, it’s easy to get obsessed with only doing things if they accomplish something vs. enjoying something for what it is.  We walk, because we need to get in our steps.  We read, but mainly read books to help us be better employees.  We do things at work, but only because they check boxes so we can move to the next rung of the ladder.  I get stuck in these ruts.  Do you?

The flowers at my house remind me that sometimes life is just about doing things that help us witness the beauty around us.  Life is writing poems, even though those poems are for the sole sake of creating.  Life is doing sidewalk chart art because it is cool to make monsters on your driveway.  Life is going on a walk just because the weather is nice.  Life is reading a book for the joy of being transported to a new world, whether that is a time in history, a magical land, or somewhere beyond.  Life is sitting outside on your front porch and just zoning out with friends.  When life is crazy busy, the thing that gets me through is pausing to remember that life isn’t always about accomplishment.  Sometimes it is about witnessing the everyday wonder hidden in small moments.

The challenge: Will you stop to appreciate the beauty in life?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry